Starting out as three friends who grew up together, the group Pentatonix has become the favorite among millions. They blend their voices in such a way that it’s hard to believe they use no instruments. Their version of “Carol Of The Bells” is stunning and amazing to listen to.
Suspected Arsonist Sought in Fire at Turkish Bible Distribution Center
Turkish authorities are searching for a suspected arsonist in connection with a fire that destroyed thousands of New Testaments and other Christian books.
The fire started at approximately 7 p.m. on Dec. 7 at the offices of the Bible Correspondence Course in Turkey (BCC-Turkey), located in a multistory building that also houses a church in the Kadikoy neighborhood of Istanbul, according to officials of the ministry.
No one was injured in the fire and no structural damage was reported, but according to an initial estimate by BCC-Turkey, some 10,000 religious books were destroyed, many of them New Testaments. Total losses so far are estimated at approximately US$12,500.
Students who live in an apartment on the top floor of the building reported smoke to emergency dispatchers, who sent firefighters to the scene. The fire was put out in minutes, largely due to the fact that it remained contained to one corner of the storage area on the second floor of the building. Kadikoy International Church and the offices of BCC-Turkey, located on the third floor, were untouched.
Paul Weaver, media and IT director at the ministry, said the identity of the attacker is unknown, but his image appears in a security camera video the day of the attack. Of great concern to members of the ministry is that on Monday (Dec. 15), someone of a “suspicious nature,” likely the same man who was seen on the security camera footage, was found searching through the stairwell of the office building. Someone in the building became aware of his presence and chased him down the stairs. Once outside, he escaped.
“I think whoever did it knew something about what happens up here, because they kind of knew to come on a Sunday afternoon, and that if they were going to have an opportunity where there weren’t going to be a lot of people around, that’s probably the one that was most likely,” Weaver said.
He said that although the damage is a serious loss, it could have been much worse…Read More
Source and Original Content by CNN
US Store Stands Its Ground to keep Christian-Themed Christmas Window Display
A Maine furniture store has been receiving some negative feedback after decorating one of its windows with a religious Christmas theme.
Discount Mattress and Furniture at the Airport Mall painted its windows with a nativity scene and the caption, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” While it seemed like a normal Christmas display to some customers, others did not like the display of faith.
“(Customers have been) asking us to take them down. Saying we were mixing our business with religion. Saying it was offensive…saying they wouldn’t shop here, nor would their friends shop here,” said store owner Kathy Harvey.
Harvey said they eventually went on their store’s Facebook page and said the store was going to stand firm on the window displays.
“To those that asked us to take the scene down…we are sorry that you don’t believe as we do, but the windows are staying as displayed until Jan. 1. If our sales decline due to our window scenes then we will shut our doors and still give the glory to the Lord,” said the Facebook status.
Harvey said she does believe Jesus is the reason for the season. Christmas is a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. She said the store is simply asking for people to be tolerant of one another and their faiths.
“We think everyone should be tolerant of everyone’s beliefs,” said Harvey.
Their Facebook page has been flooded with opinions about the matter. Some have said they support the store’s right to free speech at a private business, despite the beliefs behind it…Read More
Source and Original Content by BCNN1
Facebook Launches Stickered for Messenger for Android
Facebook, right around the holidays, has launched a Messenger spinoff app named Stickered for Messenger. The app deals largely with emoticon stickers used in the Facebook Messenger app, and lets users use them as overlays on their snapshots.
Stickered for Messenger app includes 52 categories of emoticons including Pikachu (Pokemon character), Teletubbies, Burgerhead man and more. The app, besides a Facebook ‘Like’ button sticker, additionally features a much needed and asked for ‘Dislike’ sticker with a thumbs-down. Users can drag, pinch, stretch and rotate stickers on the clicked image.
The ad-free app does not require a Facebook login. Stickered for Messenger is available to download from Google Play and is currently awaiting Apple’s approval to reach the App Store.
Stickered for Messenger however is not a standalone app, and requires Messenger to be able to send images to Facebook friends. Users can also add captions, and even apply stickers before the shot is taken with the app’s built-in camera. Users can decorate images already present in their gallery as well, and there is no limit to how many stickers can be applied in one image.
Facebook’s move to introduce a separate app for a feature that could very well have been integrated in Messenger is curious, and we may see the company bring it in as a feature if it becomes popular. Facebook Messenger last month reached the 500 million monthly active users milestone.
The social media giant, after testing the option to post Facebook Messenger exclusive stickers in Facebook comments for a couple of months, made the feature official in October. The social giant announced that stickers will be available in comments on users’ Timelines, in Groups, and also in Events.
Facebook might also introduce peer-to-peer payment system via its Messenger app soon. A Stanford computer science student Andrew Aude who reportedly used an iOS app exploration developer tool called Cycript spotted the alleged feature. As per the report, the peer-to-peer money transfer feature in the Facebook Messenger will reportedly allow users to send money with their debit cards much like Square’s Cash app. Facebook however, is yet to officially announce the feature.
Source and Original Content by NDTV
Pastors Who Are Poor Are Not Divinely Called by God
Dr Uma Ukpai, the president and founder of Uma Ukpai Evangelistic Association, has said poor men of God did not receive divine calling.
He also told Daily Independent that it was untrue that people resorted to Church establishment out of joblessness.
According to Ukpai, “Jesus calls church business. He said, ‘I am about my father’s business’. He called church work business and what is business? Business is investment plus gain, minus loss. In church planting, no pastor can collect offering without giving account and survive. Every church has elders and the job of the elders is to make sure that account is given; it is not even publicly but given internally but the account must be given.
“Church is all about investment and the gain they make is not in money but in people; that is the gain they make. People also can be called money because for instance, if a pastor’s ministry can cause 20 women to get pregnant; those women will not forget the pastor. If a pastor’s ministry can produce one of the richest 10 men in the country, those men will not forget the man who made them what they are.
“When you are into ministry and you have what we call anointing, you have become profitable; you begin to touch lives; you begin to bless people; you begin to change the stories of families and your own story will change also because the man that waters others shall be watered by God. There is so much misinformation about the church. It is not all about money. If your pastor has anointing that can make the blind see, cripples walk, leprosy to disappear, that pastor is in money.
“The only man you can worry about is a man who has no anointing; a man who God has rejected; a pastor who God has not approved what he is doing. God does not bless what he does not approve. If God approves what a pastor is doing, he will have more money than he can spend. I am an example.”
On the forthcoming general elections vis-a-vis the challenges of Boko Haram insurgency, Ukpai said the crisis was part of Nigerian culture…Read More
Source and Original Content by BCNN1
Pro-Homosexual Bakeries Refuse Christian’s Cake Order
Over a dozen pro-homosexual bakeries refused to fulfill a Christian’s order for a cake bearing the message “Gay Marriage Is Wrong” in an experiment meant to see if such bakeries would accept orders against their beliefs just as they expect of Christians.
As previously reported, in May of this year, Ashers Baking Company in Newtonabbey, North Ireland—founded by Christians and named after Genesis 49:20—was approached by a same-sex “marriage” supporter to bake a cake bearing the phrase “Support Gay Marriage,” which also was to feature the logo for the homosexual advocacy group QueerSpace.
When the bakery declined, the customer reported Ashers Baking Company to the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland, which in turn sent a warning to to McArthur, stating that he and his bakery had discriminated against Lee. The bakery was ordered to either pay or face legal action.
In light of the incident, and other similar situations that have been reported across America, Theodore Shoebat of Shoebat.com decided to call 13 homosexual-owned or pro-homosexual bakeries to ask if they would make a cake for a “traditional marriage celebration” that bore the message “Gay Marriage Is Wrong.” Not one of them agreed to make the cake.
“We’re a gay cookie shop, so I don’t think that’s going to work,” one replied.
“I apologize but we don’t support that,” another said, “because half of our staff is gay.”
“We don’t really support that or agree with that, so I’m going to have to say no,” a third stated…Read More
Source and Original Content by CNN
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Issues Warning of Attack by Islamic Militants on Christians
Pakistan’s Interior Minister has said Islamic militants are planning another terrorist attack.
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s warning came as Christians gathered for a prayer service to remember of a Taliban massacre at a school that left 132 children dead.
“We are receiving intelligence from across the country that the militants are getting ready for another savage and inhuman counter attack. All of us need to be on the alert,” the minister said.
There have been a number of brutal attacks on Christians in Pakistan recently.
The attack on the school was not thought to be directly aimed at Christianity, though.
Speaking to Reuters Babar Masih, a local Christian, said: “As human beings we have been so greatly saddened by this incident that we do not have the words to describe our grief.
“The children who were killed were angels; they have awakened people by their sacrifice.”
Source and Original Content by Premier Christian Radio
Hindu Leader Vows to continue Conversions of Muslims and Christians in India
The head of India’s most powerful Hindu group vowed to press ahead with a campaign to convert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, stoking a sensitive debate that has stalled parliament and threatened the prime minister’s economic reform agenda.
Mohan Bhagwat of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, which is also the ideological wing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, said India was a “Hindu nation” where many Hindus had been forcibly converted to other religions.
“We will bring back those who have lost their way. They did not go on their own,” Bhagwat said in a speech late on Saturday. “They were lured into leaving.”
Bhagwat’s comments came after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party said it did not support forced religious conversions and called for an anti-conversion law.
India’s 1.2 billion people are predominantly Hindus but there are also about 160 million Muslims and a small proportion of Christians.
Modi is under fire for being slow to rein in hardline affiliate groups that have been accused of promoting a Hindu-dominant agenda that includes luring Muslims and Christians to convert to Hinduism.
This month, a group of Muslims complained that they had been tricked into attending a conversion ceremony by Hindu groups, while a Hindu priest-turned-lawmaker of the ruling party planned a conversion ceremony on Christmas Day, although it was canceled after the prime minister intervened.
Supporters define such events as a “homecoming”, saying that families signing up for the ceremonies were originally Hindus.
“We don’t want to convert anybody … but then Hindus should also not be converted,” Bhagwat said, adding that those who do not support religious conversions should bring in a law against it.
Bhagwat’s comments are likely to further irk opposition parties that have disrupted parliament over the conversion issue, demanding that the prime minister himself make a statement on the issue in the upper house.
Although Modi has privately warned lawmakers in his party to back off from controversial issues such as the conversion campaign, he has so far not made any official statement on the subject, leaving it to colleagues to fend off criticism.
Source and Original Content by CT
Corruption in Nigeria, even in Churches, Ushers Steal from Offerings
ANTI – corruption preacher and Deputy National President (South South) Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigerian (PFN), Rev. Simeon Okah has said corruption is so endemic in Nigeria that even in churches, ushers steal from tithes and offerings.
Okah, founder and General Overseer of Flocks of Christ Mission, spoke on the new phase of his anti-corruption crusade as well as the security and political situation in Nigeria during an end of year press briefing at the church’s headquarter in Warri, Delta state.
He said, “Corruption has eaten so deep into the society that it is no just about politicians alone. In the church, you have to almost always pray with one eye opened because in some of the places, even some ushers and finance people steal the offerings. It is terrible.”
On perceived failure of the President Goodluck Jonathan to fight corruption in his government, he said there is hope for drastic change if Nigerians give the president a second chance to control the government.
“I agree that the President is surrounded by a lot of corrupt people and it is like when he removes one bad egg, he replaces with two bad eggs. But I have no doubt that the president is a favored child and he has the magic wand to make change.
“I believe he is being limited presently by the way he came in and the challenges of security being faced by his government and there the lure to please all sides. The moment he is returned for another term, things would not be same again. He is going to make the difference”‘ Okah said.
He added that those wishing Nigeria to break up in 2015 will be disappointed, adding that no break up will occur as the elections will come and go successfully, and “this a divine appraisal.”
Egyptian Govt Urged to free Christian Convert
Several members of the United States’ Congress are calling on the Egyptian attorney general to free a Coptic Christian convert from Islam who was jailed by Egyptian authorities more than a year ago.
In a letter the politicians claim Bishoy Armia Boulous was jailed on charges “clearly related to his religious conversion” and that he has “reportedly been harassed and physically attacked on several occasions by officials of the Tora Prison in South Cairo.”
Sent to Attorney General Hisham Barakat and President el-Sisi, the letter goes on to say: “The dropping of all charges against Mr. Boulous and his swift release will help to demonstrate not only your administration’s commitment to equal protection under the law…but that millions of men and women across Egypt need not fear government prosecution simply for choosing to change their religious beliefs.”
Mr Boulous gained widespread attention in 2007 when he became the first known citizen to sue the Egyptian government for refusing to change the religious affiliation listed on his identification card from Muslim to Christian.
After his case became public several religious leaders called for his death.
In 2009 he was charged with blasphemy, or “defaming Islam,” a charge that has since been renewed. Bishoy’s next hearing is set to take place on December 28.
International Christian Concern Advocacy Director, Isaac Six, said: “This letter could not be more timely. For years Bishoy has suffered unimaginable hardship because of his courageous decision to demand a simple freedom that should be guaranteed, namely the right to change one’s faith.
“We applaud these members of Congress for taking a strong stance on behalf of Bishoy and echo their call for his swift release.
“How can the Egyptian government claim to protect its citizens’ rights to freedom of belief when anyone who attempts to change their faith is refused official recognition and subsequently prosecuted and tortured? The answer is, they can’t.
Source and Original Content by Premier Christian Radio
